


Crimson

by momentarycarbonstory



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Ignatz introspective, Themes of war, no beta we die like Glenn, pouring one out for the art students 'cause: damn, sometimes I think of Ignatz and how kind he is and how it's probably hard-earned and hard-learned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentarycarbonstory/pseuds/momentarycarbonstory
Summary: It’s peaceful, he thinks, though now he knows what it means beyond the simple definition of a word written on parchment. Such a different feeling, knowing how it was bought and paid for, the weight of it, the breadth of it and how fragile it was despite how far it stretched.As the dust of war settles at last, Ignatz contemplates the world and how he (somehow) has to fit into it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Crimson

**Author's Note:**

> No spoilers ahead! I wrote this with my Golden Deer playthrough in mind, but reading this from any side works. I should also note that while the violence mentioned is not tremendously graphic, this is a small wade through emotions and themes of war.

Dawn has broken across Fodlan once again. It’s peaceful, he thinks, though now he knows what it means beyond the simple definition of a word written on parchment. Such a different feeling, knowing how it was bought and paid for, the weight of it, the breadth of it and how fragile it was despite how far it stretched. Or didn’t. At the very least it seems to be holding fast as he walks across the world with his canvas on his back like a burden of atonement. 

He stops at the edge of nameless towns. Just another nameless traveler to join the rest. He buys a simple meal for a few coin, inquires about lodging with as much or little success as he can hope for, then sets up his easel on the edge of any large gathering of foliage or body of water. Perfectly normal artist’s thing to do. It earns him a few eye rolls, a few murmurs of how maybe they should charge him for time but don’t know how. Perhaps he can offer his back and arms to the fields that need harvesting if there’s enough of a fuss. 

~

_“I can’t!” he says softly on the doorstep of his home, picturesque farmland he’s drawn and painted many times ignorant of his plight._

_“You can,” his family says, taking his denial as nerves._

_“I’m not sure if I can…” he murmurs, the target across the archery range, so far away it feels like staring at a coin on the ground._

_“You can if you practice,” Shamir says. “Again.”_

_“I..I don’t want to,” he says, close to sobbing as he looks at the first town his class ever helped to burn._

_“...I know,” Byleth says._

_“I have to, don’t I,” he says, standing up with a freshly tightened bow and a quiver of salvaged arrows._

_The fields say nothing._

~

Just the scenery will do. Something with enough detail to look pretty when interpreted by a person’s eyes, cluttered enough to be interesting, plausible enough to fudge with the natural blur of distance further away. Brush bristles will be replacements for sunlight and good dirt, grass and flowers popping up across the blank off-white of one of the canvases he bought one town over; a steep but lucky buy. Most people didn’t worry about art these days, even scoffed at it. But he’s seen enough people walk by his paintings on moonlit nights, on days when there’s too much to do and his canvases are there in the shade. If people can draw joy - or at least, a moment’s contemplation - from his work, then it’s not entirely useless. 

~

_The churches of the towns are what stab him the most. Each one is different. Many in the beginning are entirely intact, sometimes the only thing in town that remains standing upright, full of the injured, the dying, and those thankful for their continued breathing just a few feet away in all directions._

_In bigger and later theaters of war, these places become like old ruins. Missing pieces of roof. Broken bell towers. Sometimes it was only a matter of glancing to see the trajectory of meteor attacks or how an assault swept through one end of the town to another. Such things build history. It made him think about the old ruins he’d seen in books and how beautiful they were. How much had it cost for those ruins to be there? Not all was simply the fading of time. Beauty made it easier to look at, easier to love and remember. For every town, he paints the churches first; sometimes in guesswork as to what it once looked like, sometimes in the reality of ruin and sunlight and birds that perched on the exposed framework, caring nothing for the squabbles of humanity. Each painting, he leaves behind in the town to become a gift, a legend, or fuel for a fire._

~

This particular town had seen some action, being on the border between Leicester and Adrestia, though not nearly as much as it could have. Even without his sense of direction, he could tell where the damage came from strictly from the spottiness of it. Scorched remains of where houses once stood blot the town in neat, ashen squares. Likely as examples. People claim all manners of curses and ill luck and grief to explain the reason there hasn’t been anything built yet, but it’ll be an odd thing to see gaps like these remain for long. Usually the overwhelming motion of time overrides the necessary but sometimes obtuse notion of mourning in the end. He wonders if he’ll ever see a town where the missing houses are monuments. 

For now, he runs the brush down the gamut of the page and breathes in the sweet spring air. 

~

_One breath in. Two breaths out. Just as Shamir taught him. Quick steps. Hide behind a tree. Arrows fly, one, two. Guards down. Advance. Hide behind a tree. Full bloom. Apple, he thinks. The jealous winter has at last released its claws from the land. More arrows, one, two, three. Guards down. One sees, but the ally flanking him sees second. A wet gurgle in the night is the last noise they ever make. A whole book of horrible imagery with words to match runs through his head as he runs past, careful not to step on any wrists or legs even though the guard is dead and this is war. He doesn’t have time to think now, but he will later. He’ll have all the time in the world when all this is over. He’ll have time to remember that the air is sweet as he nocks another arrow, as another person dies, as somewhere far away, people sleep heedless in their beds._

_He is just as afraid of what will happen when war ends as he was when it started._

~

What will he make of this now? Red mindlessly misplaced on a canvas otherwise filling with green. What can be done? 

He taps the end of the brush to the corner of his mouth, imagining himself doing that, imagining what he looks like and how innocent and normal the motion is. He imagines looking at himself through the fruit seller’s eyes as they spot him and offer apples, take his money and comment on his painting. How sublime the whole set-up must look. Just a painter enjoying peace. Not a man who has blood on his hands and has practiced his smile in the mirror so he doesn’t forget how to do it. 

He imagines not knowing how easy it would be to kill such an innocent person, and imagines not knowing how afraid he is of the knowledge even though he will never use it. 

He takes a bite of the apple although his appetite never returned to normal after all the fighting was over. He must eat if he is to live. And living is important, isn’t it?

~

 _They take the time to bury the bodies, if they can. Allies get the best treatment they can give: deep holes with the dirt packed tight against weather and beast with simple wooden indicators that might have a name or personal epithet carved in. Enemies are treated to graves last if at all, usually large with many bodies. Sometimes they are simply burned to ash and scattered to the wind afterwards. The clerics and priests decide if the Goddess judges them worthy of a marker or not. Ignatz knows by the look on Mercedes’ face that it is not holiness, but exhaustion and hatred of her fellow practitioners that wins over that decision in the end. Sometimes he sees her face and wonders if her expression would change if she saw him lying in the dirt, or if war has snatched the heart out of even her enough to just make her a little more tired with one more friend gone. He wouldn’t take it personally._ _But he wonders._

~

A ribbon, he decides. A ribbon off of something can be the only explanation for such an odd color. Ribbons are cheerful additions to things. They are festive, make sweet gifts, signify promises. There is promise in this canvas still, with so much of it blank. 

~

_Word of his paintings of the goddess and churches and landscape has gotten out, causing the public eye to swivel toward him in its hungry search for something to reminisce about. Pilgrims from everywhere have heard of the softness of her likeness, the rumors of the struggle associated with its completion, and the equally (and likely) inflated rumors of its inspiration. So they come in droves, offering coin and faithfulness up to the broken rafters in need of repair._

_It draws his family too. They are happy to see him, of course. Relieved. Thankful that he is breathing. They kiss and embrace him, and when they weep, he weeps honestly with them. The way they gaze in wonder at his artwork is as pure as the rest of the spectators. They admire his brushwork, his use of color, exclaiming they could never think to use such exquisite composition. They are Goddess-sent, just what everyone needs. It is practical to serve the public this way._

_His family sent him to be a knight once, to serve and be useful. Never mind the artwork stacked against the walls in his room, the compliments from family friends, the presents of painted canvases he gave to those closest to him. Pragmatism always wins out over dreams in the end. This he often thought with bitterness as he indulged in a drawing in his dorm while wondering what he would do as a knight. This he thought with sad humor as he drew the broken landscape around him just to keep sane, using the same hands he used to kill. He wondered if this is what his family meant when they told him to go become something._

_His family had never been conniving sort, never will be, too practical and stupid to willfully participate in the schemes he’s thwarted or participated in. But walking into his old room and seeing how loudly his dreams yelled for recognition, feeling so far away from the joy of his talent when he’s become so good at shooting arrows and taking lives…_

_It drives the knife between his ribs and twists_ **_hard_ ** _._

~

He breathes in the spring air deeply. He thinks about doing this at an old age. It would be a fitting retirement to simply sit by a pond and paint all day. It isn’t as if he doesn’t enjoy it. It’s a simple and therapeutic act, mixing colors at his will, inflicting chaos and beauty on a canvas with the only punishment being running out of room or starting over when the colors clash. Nothing has to make sense unless he wants it to. He has domain over each canvas and it’s all he needs, all he should ever have. 

~

_He can pick out fighters easily from civilians now, and pick out weaknesses between guards and soldiers when they are the only things he sees._

_Scouting is now a grim but fairly easy duty. He takes care not to feels too smug. But even without a smile, here in the shadows with Shamir and her team, he can’t help but feel some pride. He no longer simply wields a weapon. He_ **_is_ ** _one. He will bring the war closer to the end in a way he could not were he a simple artist or even a front line soldier. Scouts and snipers were the life’s blood of an army, and he was good at his job. So very good at it._

_Silent as death, he and Shamir fade into the shadows with grim faces, and he knows they all feel the same as him. It makes him wonder though. What right has he to be so aloof when comparing himself to the foot soldier who runs in first, the brawler who thinks after acting, when in the end they feel the same?_

_“None,” says Shamir one evening, poking over a fire. “But at least we aren’t loud about it. Boasting isn’t for people like us. You do the job, you leave quickly, and you move on. Hopefully you leave a story or two behind. Makes enemies think twice about attacking when you’ve created a boogieman._

_~_

He starts the outline of the ribbon, reminded of a large one he saw flopping on a child’s head in the marketplace the other day. He wonders how many children in Adrestia would consider him a boogieman. How many children in Fargheus or Leicester would. If they knew his name, how many would make it a goal for life to kill him in return for taking the life of a sibling, a parent? Somewhere out there, there is a child who can’t pin their hatred to his face because they weren’t there when he shot someone they cared about. Opposing sides meant nothing to a young mind who had known love. Perhaps there was no justifying such tragedy even when he was on the right side. 

He focuses each brush stroke to be precise. The paint doesn’t bleed. The outline of the ribbon looks perfect, simply needing a bit of darkening in places to make it look like it was catching light. What should this ribbon attach to? Perhaps a set of curtains from a window? 

~

_There are a lot of people dead after the war. Someone tries to compile a list of the lost for speeches made by the new royalty, but it’s impossible to list them all. He still tries. His fingers bleed over parchment as he strains to remember the names of all his fallen comrades as he remembers how each died. Some he held until they couldn’t be healed anymore. Some he saw drop beside him. Some he only knew by the effects they carried, too busy to learn, too grieved to bother learning after a certain point. The list of names exhausts him, but it makes him wish he’d bothered more. They deserved to be remembered at least once in front of the nation they died for. In the end, he settles for simply counting. They live in his head like pieces of erratic math equations to be added up later, homages to them kept in the exact numbers of flowers he paints in some pictures, things people look at but won’t ever notice._

_~_

He hangs the painting to dry in a barn used for wheat sheaves, out of the way but open enough for whoever wandered in. There are several already. His focus lately has been on this field at different days. He should move on, paint something else. But the endless drive of perfection transferred well between archery and painting, and if that isn’t just the damnedest thing? 

He looks at each painting and spots where his mind wandered, where his memories got the best of him. It hurts in a way he hates, in a way he wishes he hadn’t come to expect, and less than he would like. 

A breath in. Two breaths out.

He grabs another blank canvas and goes back outside.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is such an old format to be using in the year of 2021 but its 2am and if this sits in my drafts for another 6 months I will actually combust. I'll probs clean it up and add a second chapter that is a bit more hopeful but that will be...later. 
> 
> I'm so happy to finally FINISH something for this fandom! I love the amount of nuance Ignatz offers as a character with a conflicting want vs need. The want to paint versus the "need" to be a knight, then the need to pick up a weapon to defend the places he loves. We love a good dilemma in this house!


End file.
